It’s Worse Than a Lie; It’s…It’s…Déclassé!

By John Fielding

An obscure congressman from South Carolina has now become a cause célèbre. Joe Wilson has become the face of the faceless forgotten people showing up at tea parties and in Washington by the thousands. Calling the President out in the middle of his address to a joint session of Congress, Congressman Wilson could not stand to hear the lies and half-truths issuing forth from Obama since he sits on a committee that deals with the subject being addressed in the speech.

Joe Wilson lost it for a second. He is like ordinary people when pushed too far by falsehood and threats to their well-being. Now he is the national face for all of us who are tired of Washington grabbing too much for itself and treating the Constitution as if it is not worth the paper it’s written on.

And what has been the response from the “brie and Chablis” crowd? "Tsk, tsk, how rude." "Sniff, sniff, how distasteful; pass me another canapé, dahling." We all know them because they belong to both parties.
Here in Berks County, they got Tom (the terrible) McMahon elected mayor of Reading twice. Through their party organ, the Reading Beagle, they even managed to cover up a deficit and unfavorable crime statistics until after Mayor McMuffin’s reelection.

On the Republican side, they wander in from the skeet ranges to support liberal Democrats for office simply because they belong to the same country clubs. One must never allow ideology or truth or principle to intrude on good manners.

They are simply the local inhabitants of the upholstered play pens of the arts and crafts auxiliary of the Northeast Liberal Establishment.

I remember a few years back, I was running for office. I had a late custody negotiation in a judge’s chambers. The judge said, “Gee, John, I didn’t expect you here this late. I thought you’d be out shaking hands with the shift workers as they got off work.” I replied, half-joking, “Nah, Judge, I’m a Republican. I go station myself outside the country club clubhouse to catch the blow-dries as they come in from the 18th green to graze on martinis."

The blow-dries think they control the local GOP. However, parties need foot-soldiers as well as those who write checks without getting their hair mussed. And the present and future foot soldiers of the GOP are in the tea parties and the demonstrations here, and in Washington. And Joe Wilson is the voice of that wing. And it is a large wing. And it exists in both parties. And the reaction of the blow-dried “brie and Chablis” toffs in both parties was the same: “It is worse than a lie; it is gauche.”

The judge was half-right. I have more in common with the workers getting off their shifts than I do with the blow-dries. The President was lying, and everybody knows it. Joe Wilson’s voice was my voice and the shift-workers’ voice. The blow dries in both parties are just going to have to get used to it.